


Love, A Rumour

by marit



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: But John can handle Sherlock, First Kiss, M/M, Sherlock can't handle kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-26 05:44:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2640266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marit/pseuds/marit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He refuses to turn around. He will leave, and John will eventually give up, and Sherlock can figure out how to fix this whole stupid, horrible, impossible situation that began with kissing and cannot end in more kissing. He won’t turn around. </p><p>He turns around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love, A Rumour

**Author's Note:**

> This story is dedicated to tea, because why not. I love it.

Sherlock learns that although John is slow to trust, he loves wholeheartedly. It is frightening. It is something Sherlock is afraid of because it is something that he does not understand and it is not something he trusts to last. He trusts John. He trusts that John is telling the truth (although he doesn’t always speak it, he simply projects it in his every motion and his every reaction) and that when he throws love around like it’s simultaneously nothing and everything, he means the sentiment. He believes John. He does not believe in a world that lets it last, though. Things will change. John’s wholehearted love will turn halfhearted, an obligation. Sherlock does not want to be an obligation. He is tempted to take it, though, because he knows that’s all he can get in the longterm because that’s all he ever gets.

He didn’t allow himself to think about it much, but Sherlock had thought in a half-formed way that if they ever kissed (which he didn’t truly think they would), it would be on the high of the adrenaline of a case, late at night, perhaps a bit harsh but also needing. That seems typical. He thinks everyone probably would expect that, a bit. He might not have thought it would happen but he can observe people (obviously he can) and he can tell what they thought about the relationship between him and John Watson.

It isn’t like that, though, when it happens.

It is the middle of the day. It is in the middle of the morgue. (Sherlock won’t admit it to John or to anyone ever but that’s maybe more ideal than he ever could have wished for.) A body is out beside them. Man in his 30s, portly, divorced but had been in a happy second relationship, death by quite obvious stab wound. Sherlock is hoping (although he would never admit to hoping anything; he will only admit to knowing) that his body would give some indication of the location he had actually been stabbed, having been dropped off ungracefully in front of his flat.

John walks up behind him after discussing some results with Molly, who had subsequently gone her own way to collect something or another. (Sherlock doesn’t care what she is doing, as long as it is helpful, which admittedly Molly usually is, anymore, now that she has gotten past her odd and entirely misplaced hopes of a non-platonic relationship with him.)

John walks up behind him. Sherlock turns to ask him a question about something he doesn’t remember later (which is horrible, awful, these are the things John Watson does to him, makes him forget). And somehow that moment brings them to the next, where their eyes meet and John takes a step forward and then they are kissing. 

Sherlock is entirely too slow to react. It is idiotic. (He is idiotic.) He is sure he is entirely unsatisfactory. He is caught off guard. He ends up a bit cross-eyed until he remembers his eyes are capable of closing. His thoughts entirely blank out, and he thinks his mouth responds but he’s not entirely sure. John’s hand settles on Sherlock’s elbow for balance but Sherlock’s hands stupidly land on the table behind him, and one is nudging against the dead man’s upper arm. It is ridiculous. It is horrible and it is wonderful and it is not what he expected because he had never expected anything to ever actually happen but here John is, kissing him, the first one to step forward, the initiator, the sign that maybe something is there.

He feels a spike of hope that he ruthlessly pushes down again just as John takes a step back. Because John doesn’t look pleased so much as wide-eyed and surprised. Was it a mistake? Is he doubting himself? He probably doesn’t care for Sherlock in that way at all and for some reason kissed him anyway. Sometimes John acts impulsively. It is not common, but it does happen, particularly during times of emotional stress. Sherlock casts backward, frantically, tries to figure out if John was stressed in any way. He doesn’t know. He didn’t think so, but then, he also didn’t think John would ever kiss him so apparently he knows nothing about John Watson and what he is likely to do at all. Can you kiss someone and not know you are going to do it? He thinks so, judging from John’s expression. You can certainly be kissed and not expect it and Sherlock knows, theoretically and practically, that you can act impulsively and do something entirely different in one moment than you had meant to do the previous moment. It’s possible. It is likely the truth. John didn’t mean to kiss Sherlock but he did for some reason ( _Why?_ ) and now he will regret it. 

John looks down and away, shoving his hands in his pockets. Sherlock wants to step forward again. He wants to touch John again. Instead he grips the table harder, his wrist pushing against the body’s arm further.

He says, eloquently, stupidly, “Uh.”

John responds, just as eloquently, “Yeah.”

But then he does something Sherlock couldn’t have hoped for. He looks up at Sherlock again, and then he grins. He smiles. His surprise passes and he looks pleased. And Sherlock wants to smile back, he tries tentatively to, but he’s not sure if it happens because his face doesn’t seem entirely under his control at that moment and he’s still not entirely certain what’s real and what isn’t and what he knows about John’s thought processes. 

And then Molly returns, chattering on about blood results, and John turns to listen to her as casually as if nothing had happened at all. Sherlock forces himself to turn around to face the body again, pretends to be staring at the edges of the knife wound, pretends that he isn’t simultaneously panicking and trying hard to stifle the vague hope that still insists on growing in his chest. 

 

 

Sherlock goes out of his way, after that, to avoid any situation that might end in kissing. Which turns out to be a lot of situations, because he doesn’t know in the first place what triggered the kiss and therefore doesn’t know what to avoid. He can eliminate certain variables of the situation based on previous experiences that did not result in kissing (corpses, the morgue, the temperature of the room, the date, what John had eaten for lunch, and so on) but there are so many other things he doesn’t know and whether it was actually a combination of different variables and it’s all rather complicated. Therefore, Sherlock has to avoid many things.

Sherlock avoids the flat entirely when he can, or makes sure someone else is around at all times. Mrs Hudson proves enormously useful, and her proclivity for gossip and baked goods is endlessly distracting. 

When he’s at the flat, because he does live there and sometimes has to be there, he either busies himself with some sort of project or forces himself to eat something. He doesn’t think he’s ever eaten so consistently before, but it’s something to do and hopefully John doesn’t want a mouthful of whatever it is Sherlock has eaten, and John usually tries to avoid disturbing Sherlock when he is clearly concentrating on a task. Sherlock wonders, though, if he can really trust any past experiences. John has thrown everything into disarray. What Sherlock knows about John is apparently only useful on a biographical level. John Hamish Watson: Has an alcoholic sister; both parents are deceased; often watches bad action movies; eats apples frequently; eats strawberries rarely; apparently utterly, completely a mystery; kissed Sherlock ( _Why?_ ).

He isn’t sure if John has caught on. He isn’t sure if he wants John to. He isn’t sure if it’s awful that John might think that this is normal, that Sherlock is always this careless with his time spent with John, that he might be unsurprised or disappointed or hurt or pleased. 

He knows it can’t happen again, though. It can’t happen even though Sherlock really wants it to because Sherlock knows that it won’t last and if he has more now he will never want to give it up. It’s like cigarettes. If he has one, that’s a mere break in his willpower. If he has more than one, he’s addicted (again). He can’t be addicted to John any more than he already is. He can only have one kiss, and he can always reflect on that one kiss that he has already filed away in one of the rooms dedicated to John Watson. It’s next to the tiny touches and the defensiveness when Sherlock gets called names and the prepared meals and the “Go to sleep now, Sherlock, you idiot.” It’s connected to “John Watson, Medicine” by the time John sat at Sherlock’s bedside in that hospital after being shot and the time John stitched up Sherlock’s arm in their bathroom after that suspect with the scissors, and it’s connected to “John Watson, Army” by the time John shot a taxi driver through two windows. 

He files it away in all the detail he remembers, which is disappointingly little. He curses his own brain for going offline at a crucial moment, and so he also files away John’s small smile in the same place because at least he remembers that in all its detail, the minutiae and the way John’s eyes crinkle differently depending on what type of smile it is and the way his eyes had slid to look at Molly so slowly, reluctantly, like he was maybe a bit disappointed the moment was broken and maybe he would have said more if they had had the time and maybe, maybe, maybe.

But “maybe” doesn’t get filed. Those are just pieces Sherlock tries to ignore but can’t stop thinking about. He finds his mind drifting while he looks through a microscope and soon instead of counting he’s thinking about what would have happened if he had reacted faster. He finds himself staring at a dead body on the back steps of a shop and wondering what would have happened if they had been in their flat instead of the middle of the morgue. He thinks about so many maybes that it starts driving him a bit mad, and he really would rather it not be happening at all but that would mean giving up that one kiss and he really doesn’t want that either because that one kiss has to hold him through his whole life. It’s just a bit disappointing he messed it up, is all.

And then, well, Mrs Hudson goes away for the weekend and they’ve just finished a case and Mycroft doesn’t even show up to bother them and it’s utterly quiet and utterly domestic and, any other time, utterly perfect because it’s just John and Sherlock at 221B Baker Street for a weekend.

While it would not be entirely uncharacteristic for Sherlock to simply disappear for the weekend as well, he finds himself oddly reluctant to leave John behind. He puts it off for so long that it’s soon 11pm and, well, he can’t leave that late or John would get worried. It’s one thing to be out at all hours during a case, but another entirely if there isn’t one. John frets, sometimes, more than he used to even, since Sherlock supposedly died. He doesn’t want to encourage John to make any move beyond anything he would do to any friend, but he also does not want to annoy or worry him. 

So he stays. He makes it through Friday without raising John’s suspicions, but by Saturday evening, John is giving him odd looks. Sherlock isn’t sure what it is that he’s done out of the ordinary. He has been steadfastly avoiding anything that would give any opportunity for John to kiss him again (or, worse, for Sherlock to be tempted to do the same) but that has largely meant simply absorbing himself in his microscope and other various (and obvious) experiments. He even slept a full 7 hours last night, since it was something to do to avoid John (but oh, that’s a dangerous train of thought, sleeping and John). 

In the nearly two weeks since they kissed in the morgue, John has not once tried to bring it up again. If he’s disappointed, he hides it well; if he’s relieved to simply let it pass as a one-off, he also hides that well. It has been, on John’s side, business as usual, really. It’s odd, Sherlock knows, but he’s so desperate that nothing change going forward that he resolutely chooses to ignore that oddness because questioning it will ultimately lead to other questions and those other questions cannot ever get answers because that’s the whole point of this, isn’t it, of avoiding any hope that their relationship can be more than it already is. Sherlock can’t question and he can’t get answers because that might lead to more and that would be utterly unacceptable because it would not continue. It could not continue. It might, for a bit, but ultimately John would get annoyed or bored or something else would happen and Sherlock would be alone but still addicted to John Watson. 

It’s not real, is it, actual love? Love is real in the sense that it comes, but then it goes, eventually. He doesn’t know anyone who has loved, really, romantically, horribly loved someone forever. And if that love ever turns to hate, well, that’s the end of that and everyone eventually goes their separate ways. Or dies. And since Sherlock very surely does not want John to die, and he would rather he stick around for quite a bit longer, the only option is to ignore the possibility of real, romantic, horrible love. 

And Sherlock may have admitted to himself love ago that he really, romantically, horribly loves John, he also can never be entirely certain that that will last forever. Feelings change. He doesn’t want to offer John something that might not last forever because John deserves better than that. If he cannot get forever, John at least deserves someone who thinks it possible. Love beyond the platonic and of the type that lasts forever is a rumour, a story. It’s never been something that has been in Sherlock’s life or the lives of anyone he knows. So he won’t offer it. He will not be tempted by it. Sherlock would rather John’s wholehearted friendship-type love, which is more likely to last longer because it has fewer expectations, than John’s halfhearted romantic-type love.

So he doesn’t question. He doesn’t think about it, except for when he can’t avoid it because he has always had problems turning off his own thoughts. But apparently he’s done something, because John is looking at him oddly, and then, at a time Sherlock’s computer says is 22:34 (he thinks, fleetingly, that it’s an oddly nice number for it to happen), John says, “Sherlock?”

Sherlock’s reply is a vague hum of inquiry, a sound that he sincerely hopes makes him seem somewhat distant and preoccupied and not completely focused on John despite not looking at him, like he actually is.

“Is everything all right?” John asks. There’s a hesitance there that Sherlock can’t help but pick up on. 

Sherlock doesn’t know what “everything” entails, but he responds, anyway, with, “Yes, of course.” As if that’s that, there are no other questions to ask. He doesn’t look up from his laptop, staring determinedly at an article about induced Capgras syndrome. He hears John shift in his chair. He’s sitting with a book in hand, Sherlock knows, but he hasn’t been reading it for the past half hour. 

They’re silent for a few minutes, Sherlock ostensibly reading his article and John sitting quietly thinking.

John opens his mouth, closes it, and then speaks anyway. “It’s just, you’re acting a bit odd. For you, I mean.” Sherlock ignores the implication that he’s normally odd. He knows that’s not what John meant, and John’s moved on already. 

“Oh?” Sherlock responds, letting derision seep through the single syllable, an attempt to ward off this discussion.    
“Yes,” John says, apparently emboldened instead of warned off. “You have, ever since--for the last while. If you weren’t sitting right there, I’d say you’ve been avoiding me.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sherlock answers. He is still resolutely not looking at John, as if that will in some way help at all instead of doing what it’s probably doing, which is convincing John he’s correct. 

“Look, I know we’ve made sort of silent agreement not to talk about me--about what happened a couple weeks ago, but if I’ve gone and ruined things, I want to fix that, and you need to tell me how because I don’t know what you want beyond ignoring it.”

“I want you to continue to ignore it,” Sherlock says, and it comes out blunter than he means it to because he desperately does want to return to ignoring it. It cannot, it will not, change a thing. 

He hears John stand up, and tenses, not sure what John plans on doing. But he stays standing in front of his chair, apparently feeling the need to stand but not actually move. 

“Sherlock,” he says, “We can’t just ignore things if you’re going to continue to act all weird about it. I’ve been trying, right? I’m sorry I kissed you. It was a mistake, I guess, I don’t know why I did it, just--Will you at least look at me?” He sounds simultaneously annoyed and distressed, and Sherlock can barely stand it.

“You’re right, it was a mistake. Let’s move on.” Sherlock has to stop himself from standing up and fleeing, having already established that he can’t simply run without worrying John. That’s the point of being here this weekend. That’s what lead to this whole mess of a conversation.

John’s suddenly beside him, then, lurching forward from his position in front of the chair. Sherlock’s not sure when that started, John’s ability to catch Sherlock off-guard with his movements, but he’s done it again. 

“Can you look at me when you say that? When you say it was a mistake?” John asks. He sounds hurt, which is ridiculous because he’s the one who said it was a mistake in the first place. Sherlock was just agreeing, even if he doesn’t actually think it was a mistake and really hopes John was lying as well. 

Sherlock does look at John then, which turns out to be the actual mistake because when he opens his mouth to lie, he finds he can’t. He catches the briefest moment of relief flash across John’s face before Sherlock turns away again. As soon as he starts the motion, though, John’s hand comes up to push gently against the jawline furthest away to turn him back toward John again. 

“Stop looking away,” he says. His voice is firm even if his touch isn’t. Sherlock could ignore it, push his hand away, if he really wanted to. He finds he doesn’t really want to though. He wants to push against it. He has the strangest urge to smell John’s palm, to try to figure out all of the things John has done today purely from the feel and smell of his hand, even though Sherlock’s been there for it all, knows John has mostly been reading and catching up on correspondence, that he ate a sandwich on stale bread for lunch and that he has had three cups of tea today, one of which Sherlock made and left sitting beside him while he slowly typed out an email. 

Sherlock doesn’t resist, but he doesn’t meet John’s eyes again. He hopes John will get bored or give up, that he’ll leave it alone and go back to his book or to bed early. His eyes are level with John’s striped jumper, and he stares resolutely at a spot where blue meets cream. He says nothing because he has nothing to say. He simply waits for John to do or say whatever it is he wants to do or say and move on. 

Except it turns out what John wants to do is kiss him again. His ring and little fingers on the underside of Sherlock’s jaw gently prod him into looking up to meet John’s eyes. Sherlock finds himself obeying the subtle direction for some reason, as he continually seems to be accidentally obeying what John tells him to do. There’s a look in John’s eyes that Sherlock isn’t entirely sure how to interpret, a mixture of hope and uncertainty and something else, something bigger that Sherlock doesn’t want to parse out in case he’s entirely wrong. 

John doesn’t say anything, but his intention is obvious in the way he sways toward Sherlock. He gives Sherlock a chance to protest, to move away, to do the things he should be doing, the things he knows he wants to do but also finds he doesn’t do. And then John’s lips are on his, a second time, the second time that Sherlock wasn’t supposed to let happen. John is hesitant, gentle, careful, on the edge of pulling away again before Sherlock reacts fully. But no, not this time--this time, Sherlock wants a chance to participate, to catalogue, this second time that shouldn’t be happening. 

Against his best judgment, his mind screaming at him to pull away, to pretend this one, too, never happened, his hands come up. One grips John’s forearm, the one that leads to his hand that is still against Sherlock’s jaw. The other grips John’s jumper, pulls him in closer. It’s odd, a bit, being kissed by someone who is higher than him. Sherlock’s usually the taller one, the one bending subtly toward the other person in the kiss (not that it really happens often) but he’s sitting and John’s standing so his face has to tilt up a bit.

John’s lips are moving against his, and then his tongue sweeps across Sherlock’s bottom lip and Sherlock can’t help but open his mouth more to him. The kiss is ages and too fast and also not enough and Sherlock finds himself unintentionally pulling John in closer until he trips into Sherlock’s lap with a knee to Sherlock’s thigh and a huff of escaped air straight into Sherlock’s mouth, which is odd and uncomfortable but also not entirely unwelcome because at least it’s John’s odd and uncomfortable air travelling from John’s lungs and into Sherlock’s mouth.

It makes John laugh, though, against Sherlock’s mouth, and Sherlock can’t help his answering grin. They’re not really kissing anymore so much as simply pressed close together, their faces still touching, John’s laughter subsiding into a smile that Sherlock wants to see for the rest of his life because it’s so brilliant that it makes Sherlock’s heart do odd things in his chest that hearts really shouldn’t be doing, he doesn’t think.

And it’s that more than any actual rational thought that makes the smile slide off his face. Because he wasn’t supposed to be doing this. He can’t be happy about this because if he’s happy about this he will want it to continue. 

John must see it, because his own smile disappears abruptly and Sherlock feels horrible about that. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks. He leans away, and it’s then that Sherlock discovers that he’s still gripping John’s jumper and that he can’t seem to make himself let go yet. Except he knows he should, so he forces his fingers to uncurl. John balances himself, stands up fully again so he can look at Sherlock properly. He waits for an answer in that way John sometimes but not always does, in an utterly patient way. 

“I--” Sherlock starts, and then restarts, “That wasn’t supposed to happen.” Wrong. That wasn’t what he meant to say, but it’s out there in the air between them now, hovering awkwardly and disastrously. He sees it, the moment John’s expression closes off. He doesn’t physically move away yet but he’s tenser. 

Sherlock jerks into a standing position, his chair nearly falling backward in his haste. He catches it by the back, sets it straight, hits the back of his shins with it. He moves ungracefully sideways and away from the table and John. Because he doesn’t know how to fix this. He doesn’t know how to change anything, to make himself make this right and to make himself better, and that’s why it wasn’t supposed to happen. 

He told himself he wouldn’t run, since John would worry and it doesn’t help at all. But he does it anyway. He waves vaguely toward the door, mutters something about going for a bit, and flees, barely remembering to snag his coat on the way out. 

 

 

He doesn’t get far. In fact, he only gets two blocks. 

He gets two blocks away, which is as many blocks as it takes for the rain to nearly flatten his hair and for him to realize he’s still wearing slippers.

He gets two blocks away, which is how many blocks he spends cursing himself multiple times and feeling a deep sense of shame and guilt and horror at himself.

He gets two blocks away, which is apparently enough time for John to get over his shock and his own closed-off expression and catch up to Sherlock.

John grabs Sherlock arm with enough force to make him spin around in surprise. Apparently it’s also two blocks that John just jogged without a jacket on. And of course it’s raining, because what would a maudlin love story be without rain? Not that they are in a love story, Sherlock hurriedly corrects his own thoughts, because that would be ridiculous and is not at all what is going to happen. And Sherlock is never, ever maudlin. 

“I’m not kissing you again in the rain,” John says immediately when they are facing. It catches Sherlock completely off guard, since he had expected accusations or questions or near hysteria. Not that John is prone to hysteria, but, well, who knows what he’s prone to after he’s just kissed someone who immediately implies he didn’t want it to happen. “It’s not at all as romantic as things make it seem, and I’m already freezing and not remotely in the mood,” he continues. 

Sherlock knows his expression probably looks as baffled as his thoughts are, but in what is getting to be a horrible habit around John, he once again can’t seem to hide it. “Go back home,” he says, instead of anything useful.

John gets that stubborn look he gets when Sherlock is doing something particularly cruel or reckless. Not that Sherlock would ever admit to being cruel or reckless but, really, he is sometimes. He’s fine with that. Having John turn that expression on him in this situation, though, is a surprise. Again. John and his surprises. Sherlock hates it, but also loves it, because it would be boring otherwise, if John were utterly predictable. But he hates it.

“No,” he says. His arms even cross, like he’s going to plant himself in the sidewalk and refuse to move. “We’re going to figure this out, even if we have to stand in the rain all night.” 

“There’s nothing to figure out,” Sherlock responds. “Go home.”

“I’m not going home,” John reiterates. 

“I’m leaving,” Sherlock announces, and does so. 

“No, you aren’t,” John says, and stubbornly follows. He doesn’t grab Sherlock’s arm again but his very presence stops him when he reaches the corner of the next block (three blocks, now, is how far he’s gotten). He suddenly doesn’t know which way to go. Where was he going to go? Why can’t he just choose a direction? How utterly stupid. He’s never been indecisive before. John’s presence nags at him, though, just behind him. 

He refuses to turn around. He will leave, and John will eventually give up, and Sherlock can figure out how to fix this whole stupid, horrible, impossible situation that began with kissing and cannot end in more kissing. He won’t turn around. 

He turns around. 

John looks triumphant, like he somehow influenced Sherlock’s decision, which wasn’t actually a decision at all--in fact, it was the exact opposite of his decision. Yet he did it anyway.

“What do you want?” Sherlock says, before John can say anything. 

John looks almost surprised, which is perhaps fair enough considering Sherlock obviously knows what John wants. He just refuses to recognize it. 

“You’re being impossible,” is his response, after one aborted attempt at a reply. 

“I’m not the one who won’t leave me alone,” Sherlock spits back, which is perhaps a semantically ridiculous statement but true nevertheless. Sort of.

John looks even more flabbergasted, and states reasonably, “You aren’t even making sense.”

A pause commences where Sherlock has to fight against saying the first response that comes to mind, which is the awfully childish, “No, you aren’t making sense.”

He does not say that, luckily, but unluckily, the brief silence does give John a chance to say, “Can we please go back to the flat? It’s freezing and wet and cold.”

“You just said you were cold twice,” he can’t help but point out, although he feels a brief moment of concern to see John’s attempts to hide his shivering. 

John huffs out a breath, and Sherlock can’t quite tell if it was a laugh or a sigh of exasperation. An exasperated laugh, perhaps. He can’t quite help the answering quirk of his own lips, although he immediately attempts to hide it. 

John isn’t fooled, because he can read Sherlock too well by now, and that’s something Sherlock should really attempt to fix but he can’t be bothered to. 

“I might just have to kiss you in the rain anyway if you don’t stop being a prat,” he says. “And you really don’t want that because I might freeze to you.” 

“Can’t have that,” Sherlock says, and stalks in the direction of the flat again, leaving John to once again jog to catch up to Sherlock’s longer strides. There's an odd satisfaction in seeing that little jog. He doesn’t think of it as giving in but simply as something practical: John is cold. He might not want to kiss John but he also does not want him to fall ill, and while being cold does not in itself normally cause illness except in extreme situations, he does not want John to be susceptible to illness any more than normal. He’s horrid while ill. He’s demanding and cranky at the inactivity and anyone who might be around, and it’s purely practical, that’s all, to not want that. Or so Sherlock tells himself.

The three blocks back are traversed in silence, John’s quick steps at his side and the occasional vehicle driving past the only surrounding sounds. Everyone else is inside trying to avoid the rain or already asleep. 

It’s only been about 10 minutes since Sherlock left the flat in the first place, although it feels like much longer. The space feels changed, the quiet odd but not unwelcoming. 

“You didn’t even lock the door,” he points out as he pushes it open. Just as well, as he forgot his key. 

John shrugs and otherwise ignores him. He hurries up the steps ahead of Sherlock, and then bypasses the main floor completely and continues up to his bedroom. Sherlock is left standing by the door to the kitchen, baffled. After all that, John doesn’t want to talk? Then, of course, he realizes that John probably simply wanted to change out of his wet clothing and will be back. He feels a bit embarrassed by his own stupidly. He has a few moments to prepare, though, to come up with a good, succinct statement to dissuade any future non-platonic motions. 

Instead, he sheds his coat and soaked slippers and socks and makes tea. He tells himself it’s pure efficiency that he pulls out two clean mugs instead of just one for himself, and knows he’s lying. 

He ignores John when he quietly pads into the kitchen doorway. He leans against the frame, arms crossed over his newly chosen woollen jumper. He’s uncomfortable, but not defensive--tired or relaxed enough to lean and not stand at attention, but self-conscious enough to want to protect his torso. Sherlock finishes making the tea and hands him a mug, which he holds in one hand and rests against the other forearm in a way that means he doesn’t have to entirely uncross his arms. Very uncomfortable, then.

Sherlock leans against the counter and tries to look unthreatening and relaxed. He shouldn’t care about this, should he, that conversation is imminent? But he does. He really, really does, and he doesn’t want to. He wants to ignore it all and pretend noting at all happened, but he knows that wouldn’t work. He tried, briefly, and failed enormously. If he hadn’t failed, they wouldn’t be standing here, tea clutched in both of their hands like it’s the only thing tethering them to their kitchen. 

“So,” John finally says.

Sherlock says nothing. He isn’t sure what to say. He finds he doesn’t want to say anything because, oddly, he’s doubting himself a bit. He finds John in his uncomfortableness oddly endearing. He wants to step forward. He wants to return to half an hour ago when they were kissing in an awkward position, when John had laughed into his mouth. 

“Here’s what I’ve decided,” John begin when Sherlock doesn’t. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and you are going to be totally honest. We need some honesty here. We don’t do that nearly enough. Got it?”

“All right,” he answers. Why does he answer that? He can just lie. He should just lie. He probably won’t just lie but he should because this will lead nowhere good otherwise. But John’s right, isn’t he? They do skirt around the issue a lot, neither of them being direct and both of them being ultimately too careful. (Wouldn’t people be surprised at Sherlock being careful?) It suddenly occurs to Sherlock that maybe that’s the whole issue. It’s not the kissing but the ignoring, perhaps, and Sherlock has to shove down the spike of hope at the fact that maybe there’s another angle to this, something else he’s doing wrong that doesn’t mean he has to give up touching John after it’s only just started. Maybe he can have more. But no, he shouldn’t think that. 

“Did you want me to kiss you?” John asks. Well then. Straight to it, Sherlock supposes.

“No,” Sherlock responds. John looks hurt, so Sherlock stupidly continues with the honesty and hurriedly adds, “But not for the reasons you think.” 

“Why did you drag me out into the rain?” is the next question, instead of one asking for clarification like Sherlock had expected him to ask.

Simple answer, really: “I didn’t. You followed me.”

John makes a displeased face. “Why did you leave?” he repeats. “It’s bad weather for a whim.”

“I had to think.”

“About?”

“How to fix it.”

“Fix what?”

“Us. This.”

“That doesn’t help at all, Sherlock,” John responds, breaking the rhythm of their question-and-answer session before it had even really begun. Too bad.

He shrugs, takes an overly nonchalant and forced sip of his tea. “It’s the truth, though.”

“Why do you need to fix us? We’re fine. We could be great. Why do you keep avoiding me? If you don’t want anything more than friendship, then just say so! I might be a bit upset, yeah, but I could move on eventually.” John sounds frustrated now, still a bit hurt. He’s straightened away from the door frame. Some of his tea has splashed on his sleeve but he either hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care. He still grips the handle like a lifeline. 

“Because it won’t last!” Sherlock responds and immediately hates himself for it. That’s too honest. That’s more honesty than anyone wants to hear. He’s annoyed at himself and he’s annoyed at John and he really, really doesn’t want to deal with this but apparently it’s already being dealt with and he can’t go back now. 

“Because if you keep kissing me, I won’t want you to stop,” he finds himself adding and great, now he sounds like a teenage girl on the cusp of her first major relationship. (His mother’s annoyed voice chirps in from a distant part of his brain asking what’s so wrong about being a teenage girl?) “And that’s not good. At all. So you have to stop now.”

John looks simultaneously angry and confused. “Why wouldn’t it last?” he asks. His voice is quieter than Sherlock would have expected, almost hesitant, like he’s scared to admit to the hope that it would actually last. 

“Because your relationships don’t last, John.” And great, now he looks hurt again. This is too many emotions in a short time span for Sherlock to deal with, so he simply barrels on. “And neither do mine, so let’s get past it and move on.” 

He slams his mug down harder on the counter than he means to, pushes off the counter and moves to stalk into the living room. John’s blocking the doorway, so he can’t even dramatically go to his bedroom and slam the door. Oh well. 

Except, well, John can be fast when he wants to be and he is suddenly in front of Sherlock, still holding that damned cup of tea, which has lost half its contents to the floor on its way across the kitchen, and standing too close but not so close that they are touching at any point. 

“You are not walking away again, Sherlock Holmes,” he says, apparently with the assumption that Sherlock’s last name adds forcefulness. He’s not entirely incorrect. “We’re sorting this out.”

“There’s nothing to sort out!” Sherlock practically yells in his frustration. He wants to shove his face into the back of the couch and pretend none of this exists. He wants to put proper shoes on and leave again. He wants a lot of things. “We’re moving on!” He waves his hand around as if that somehow adds to his point. 

“We are bloody well not moving on,” John says. And then he pours the remainder of his tea down Sherlock’s shirt front.

It’s not entirely clear to Sherlock whether it was intentional or not. He’s just glad it wasn’t still hot, and annoyed that he had finally started to dry off completely from the rain only to find himself drenched in tea. How did John manage to spill so much on the floor and also so much on Sherlock? How can one cup of tea contain that much liquid?

John looks equally stunned, and then snaps out of it with his usual eloquence. “Fuck, sorry. Sorry. Just a moment.”

He returns quickly with a cloth, patting ridiculously at Sherlock’s shirt. 

“Is this the part of the argument where you strip and seduce me?” John asks.

Sherlock snorts, although he would never admit to that if asked later. He doesn’t snort, he just tries to suppress a surprised laugh.

“No, this is where I accuse you of spilling tea on me on purpose in order to seduce _me_ ,” he answers. The tension has been stripped away, dripping metaphorically to the ground with the tea. (Of course metaphorically. What else would it be? Tension doesn’t actually drip. Thankfully.) They’ve returned, although perhaps a bit hesitantly, to their much more comfortable banter. 

John pauses, or perhaps admits to his shirt blotting being entirely ineffective. His hand holding the cloth is still on Sherlock’s chest, and Sherlock has no inclination to pull away from it. He’s staring at a button of his shirt like it has the answers to the world, his eyebrows scrunched. It looks a bit like his own thoughts hurt, which would be typical, wouldn’t it, if John gave himself a headache just from thinking too hard.

“I won’t be leaving. Will you?” he asks. 

Right. Back to the uncomfortable seriousness, then.

“No,” Sherlock answers, completely honestly. Still. Not that he would ever say yes to that question.

John looks up, finally meeting his eyes again, which he hasn’t done in what feels like ages but has actually only been minutes. It’s a bit uncomfortable since they are still standing close. Sherlock still doesn’t feel any urge to move back, though.

“Can I kiss you again?” John asks. “Without you doing something stupid this time?” 

And Sherlock finds that this time, he can’t think of any reason to say no. He feels no worry or panic at the idea. Somehow their stupid argument seems to have calmed some part of him, a part that will undoubtedly rise again at an inconvenient moment in the future. For now, though, he’s fine to pretend it never existed. He’s fine to believe John when he says he won’t be leaving Sherlock. He’s fine to do a lot of things, and one of those things is kissing John Watson, and so he says, quite simply, “Yes.” 

John’s hand grips Sherlock’s shirt as his other rises to pull Sherlock’s face down to meet his. He’s holding something in that hand as well, and Sherlock thinks, in brief moments punctuated by a kiss that’s really rather all right, actually much better than all right, excellent in fact, that it must be something for the tea stain. That is, until John’s hand moves and the item swings and hits Sherlock in the back of the head and he is forced to contemplate whether John is trying to seriously injure him tonight. 

He pulls away just enough to ask, “Are you still holding the mug?”

And for the second time that night, John laughs straight into Sherlock’s mouth.


End file.
